Dream Day

“Dream Day”
Scattered about the living room, everyone reclines stagnantly after dinner. The meal Kurt prepared of pan-fried uku, like an eruption from Vesuvius, has stopped everyone in their tracks. Now Derek, Kurt, and his three friends (attractive, female friends, as Kurt and Derek’s luck would have it), gaze at the television, where “Legends of the Blue” plays. The classic spearfishing video stars Derek’s childhood idol, Bruce Ayau. A distinctive diver with his black ponytail and cotton socks, distinguished by his diving prowess which Derek could only dream of imitating.
Kurt, a scholar in all pursuits, appears to be studying the video, gleaning bits of information on stalking technique, diving form, and generally looking good on video that he can later apply. In actuality though, Kurt’s pondering another Longboard Lager- a scholar and a respectable drinker to boot. “Bruce takes advantage of the uku’s curiosity,” narrates the film just before the speakers project the pop of speargun bands slinging the shaft- the uku’s death knell. Derek was using his modicum of meteorological knowledge (limited mostly to haphazard observations followed by inane speculation) to forecast the next day’s dive conditions, but the sight of Bruce dispatching the uku prompts recollections of his own uku encounter.
From the surface, the sea floor eighty-five feet below was clearly visible. The water was clean off much of the southeast coast; Derek and Kurt knew because they were busy drifting past it in the current. A high tide winds the current up like a toy car, letting it go on the tide shift and turning the waters just offshore into an HOV lane. But the wind was moderate and the divers were able to drift alongside their kayak, straying on brief forays then scurrying to catch up, like a dog following its master.
A few fish already adorned Derek’s kui. Two moana kali, defying nature’s laws by becoming even more beautiful after death, glowed pink furthest down the line. They had been speared earlier around boulder patches before the current picked up. More recently a small uku was added. Like an armoire collector on Antique Roadshow, the uku had been thoroughly inspecting Kurt’s flasher. As Derek approached, the uku wafted away, but not fast enough, and nowhere near far enough. At 100 feet Derek caught up to the uku and fired his spear into it. Down but not out, the uku ran line off Derek’s Marc Valentin reel. But its efforts would succeed only in delaying its ultimate demise.
Now Derek was dropping through the blue water, rays of sunlight giving way to an unfolding deep blue expanse as he descended toward a boulder patch, serving as a mall for reef fish, a food court for a spearfisherman. Behind a ridge he took up residence, peering over its top while keeping most of his body hidden from view. Mamo fluttered atop coral heads in small groups, and a few hinalea loped along. A sandbar shark, a species whose hunched back looks in need of a chiropractor, slid in from the side then took off after getting a look. A minute and a half after Derek left the surface a pot-bellied uku suddenly appeared, surveying the reef from a slight elevation. Derek relaxed, melted his green and yellow wetsuit into the ridge’s algae as much as possible, but knew time was expiring. Noticing that it had halted its approach, Derek crept toward the big, silvery slab.
Life is good for a big uku. Unlike a law firm or internet chatroom, Oahu’s reefs are not thick with predators. An 18-pound uku is pretty much Chairman of the Board. If there was a movie about reefs around Oahu, The Rock would play the big uku.
However, word had passed from coral head to coral head that already today two ukus were impaled and dragged to the surface where they met their end- the work of divers. The big, silver uku contemplated this horror as a diver, camoflauged in purple and gray, drifted by on the surface eighty feet above. Years ago, when he lived at the rock outcropping by the sand pit on the shallow reef, a diver had fluttered towards him, a terrifying sight, cheeks puffed out, eyes bulging, then lunged forward and shot a spear, nicking his tail fin and drilling into the reef with an explosion of coralline algae shrapnel. Replaying it now in his primitive mind caused stifling apprehension, unnatural of a big uku. These very feelings gave rise to irritation, a disposition more fitting of a beast with such a toothy snarl. He recalled that his pet sea slug, Sylvester, was mortally wounded in the ordeal. He felt a tinge of anger.
After all, he’s the most efficient and genetically gifted predator on this reef. These days his gonads alone weigh as much as he did in his entirety the day of his near-death experience early in life. Now he has fangs, big ones, like some kind of nasty mamba from the Serengeti. Now he has a belly that can hold four shrimp, three nehu, a hinalea, and a baby uhu; he knows, he tried it last spring. Now he can swim faster, bite harder. Now he’s bad, and this is his domain. The strong current swept that diver past already, why should he worry about that? An uku of his caliber shouldn’t concern himself with anything more than hunting down a meal. Speaking of which, just exactly what is that he sees behind that ridge?
The uku was, indeed, safe from Kurt, the diver who already drifted by eighty feet overhead. Safe for the time being that is, as Kurt is fond of turning the predator into his prey. No uku larger than five pounds is ever really safe from Kurt Chambers, a lesson learned the hard way earlier in the day by a seven-pound specimen. Now Kurt, comfortable in this realm and keen to produce more meat for dinner, scanned his surroundings for a sign of a respectable fish. Behind him Derek burst to the surface and bellowed, “I think I’m gonna need some help!” Kurt wheeled to offer his assistance.
Derek elucidated the problem. “Gut shot on a big uku. My line feels slack and there’s a shark down there, so I don’t know…”
“Hold on, don’t pressure it,” Kurt counseled, following Derek’s snaking reel line first with his eyes, then with his fins. On the bottom Kurt found an 18-pound uku, its side a gaping wound expanding with every thrash against the spear. Its vigorous struggles gained it no ground, as the reel line had snagged a nub of coral. Kurt bounded forward, his left arm a pogo stick hopping across the bottom as his right hand extended and he took aim. All hope for escape was vanquished with a slight flex of Kurt’s trigger finger.
The narration of his favorite video brings Derek back to the present. “Bruce notices a flash in the distance,” announces the narrator in his deep, stoic voice. Distance closes between Bruce and the uku. Tired from a day of diving, Derek closes his eyes now, but he can envision the scene. Bruce glides deeper as the uku swaggers closer. The uku’s perpetual search for food will soon land him on the dinner plate, an irony that briefly plays in Derek’s mind, but then he’s asleep. The uku is no longer pixels on the screen; it’s right in front of him now. A familiar sight, though he would have to get used to the feeling of diving with these cotton socks and black ponytail.